Tuesday, February 10, 2004

It seemed that the plans were endangered when Dr. Amudo accidentally signed one of his emails "Dr. Victor Abana." However, Clayton is not the type to cut bait over something as inconsequential as an alias, and lets him off with a little of the what-for, saying:

Well, I can tell you something, Mr. Dr. Chris Amudo ... I'm not giving up. We've fought too hard and come too far to give it all up at the first sign of trouble. I'm gonna fight for this, because I think it's worth fighting for. And I know you, Dr Chris. Not you you, but the you that I see, in your letters ... in the funny little way you say, "hotle," and in the way you have your birthday in February. Let's do this!

And of course, Dr. Amudo has a ready explanation for the mixup:

CHRISTOPHER IS MY BAPTISMAL NAME BECAUSE I AM A CATHOLIC. AMUDO IS MY NATIVE NAME WHILE ABANA IS MY SURNAME. THEREFORE I COULD USE DR. ABANA OR DR. AMUDO. I AM VERY SORRY FOR CAUSING YOU ANY EMBARRASSMENT WITH THE NAME.

This is good enough for Clayton, though something in the back of his mind points out that the good doctor still hasn't explained the "Victor" part. But we can't get burnt off with such trivialities. As Clayton says, "I'd say I'm about 40% resplendant / 60% confident at this point," (whatever the hell that means.) "Maybe only 42/58. I'm sure that once I hear an equally logical explanation of how Victor fits into it all I'll be bribing with confidence."

In the meantime, Clayton is trashing out the details for his departure to Lagos, though Amudo/Abana insists he fly into Enugu, where he already has a hotle picked out for Clay. I'll bet he does.

UPDATE: One of Brian's readers noted that Dr. Amudo-Abana's name put him in the mind of the old Barry Manilow song "Copacabana." Thus inspired, I composed a little ditty to the tune of "Copacabana" over at Brian's comments section.